An overwhelming majority of Floridians think people should be screened for mental health problems before purchasing a gun, according to a Sunshine State Survey released Monday.

In the wake of recent high-profile shootings across the nation, the survey found Floridians sharply divided on whether their state's gun laws are restrictive enough.

But gun-rights and gun-control advocates seem to agree on one thing: keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally disturbed.

A whopping 85 percent of those surveyed said mental health screenings should be required for buying a gun or receiving a gun license. Only 13 percent disagreed, and 3 percent had no opinion.

"It's stunning," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida, who supervised the survey. It was conducted for USF by The Nielsen Company.

"You haven't seen that level of consensus on things involving law enforcement and the judiciary," she said. "They understand that mental health is one of the causes for a lot of these shootings. With all these heinous crimes, when you peel back the biography of the shooter, pretty soon it lands on mental health problems."

But respondents may not have thought through the implications of imposing screenings on everyone who wants a gun.

"They just heard 'mental health screenings' and 'guns' in the same question," MacManus said. "And the fact that 85 percent said 'yes' shows the power of mental health as a big issue in the minds of a lot of Floridians."

When asked about gun laws generally, nearly half, 48 percent, of those surveyed said Florida laws are not restrictive enough, while 42 percent said restrictions are about right, 7 percent thought they are too restrictive and 3 percent had no opinion.

In January, the Florida Legislature will consider bills to allow people with concealed weapons permits to openly carry firearms and to allow some gun owners to carry weapons on college campuses and at K-12 schools. The survey did not ask about those proposed changes.

Recent shootings at a church in South Carolina and a community college in Oregon recharged the national debate on gun control, which has spilled into the presidential campaign.

At a nationally televised debate last week, several Democratic candidates called for more gun controls. Former Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican candidate, told voters in South Carolina that states, not the federal government, should keep guns from the mentally ill.

Monday's release was the third in a weekly series of four installments of Sunshine State Survey results, this one focusing on guns and police.

A majority, 54 percent, said "few" or "very few" police engage in racial discrimination on the job. Twenty percent said "many" police are discriminatory, and 7 percent said "almost all" of them are.

This question revealed a racial gap in perceptions. African-Americans had the lowest trust in police, with 17 percent saying that almost all police discriminate and another 26 percent saying that many do.

It also revealed a regional gap, with South Floridians more likely to see racism in police ranks. Some 26 percent in the region said many police discriminate, and 8 percent said almost all do.

The survey was based on 1,251 telephone interviews of Florida adults July 30 to Aug. 16. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.77 percentage points.